Flaming Red is Patty Griffin's second album. It was released on June 23, 1998 and reached number 12 on the Top Heatseekers chart. According to Billboard the album has sold 122,000 copies in the U.S. up to May 2004. Griffin stated on her live album A Kiss in Time that she wrote the song "Christina" about the late Christina Onassis. The song "Tony" is about adolescent depression where a gay student named Tony commits suicide. It is sung from the perspective of a depressed classmate who sits behind Tony in class.